The Future Of The Gas Network - Cadent

Ed Porter (0:00)

I'm your host, Ed Porter. Welcome back to Transmission.

A gas pipe laid today is built to last for up to 100 years, but the demand for the gas running through it is meant to fall long before that. So what actually happens to the gas distribution network as how we use that network changes? This isn't a cost comparison between electrification and gas for heat, and it isn't an emissions assessment. It's an engineering view, how the gas network actually works, why it's built that way, and how it changes as its purpose shifts. Sam Wilson, Director of Energy System Operations, works on Cadent's gas distribution network. In this conversation, he takes us from the gas molecules origin to the boiler at the end of the street, and what happens to the pipe afterwards. Want to know how heat electrification could reshape power demand in GB? Ask Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst. Sign up is free, and link is in the description. Let's jump in.

Hello Sam, welcome to Transmission.

Sam Wilson (1:06)

Good to be here. Thank you.

Ed Porter (1:07)

And as ever, let's get straight into the detail. So what does everyone get wrong about what Cadent does?

Sam Wilson (1:13)

I'd say there's a couple. There's one for the gas industry, which is the smell of gas. It doesn't actually smell like that. Most people know that, but when the smell gets added, it's probably a question that geeks of the audience will probably ask the question of.

Okay, let's do that. It's not unodorized as it comes into the country, so LNG or off the North Sea, wherever that source may be. And that macaptan, which is the thing you can smell, is the chemical that's added as it gets depressurized and gets into the distribution network.

Ed Porter (1:40)

So from the transmission to the distribution network, that's the point where the smell gets added. But if you were to smell gas at the transmission...

Sam Wilson (1:46)

It's unodorized, so you wouldn't smell it.

Ed Porter (1:49)

So how would you find it?

Sam Wilson (1:50)

You have monitors and various safety precautions around that. The smell is added for the purpose of the general public, for the safety precaution that you can smell it in properties or on the street and all those precautions. But in the processing element, if you think about it that way, they'll have controls as monitoring sensors to identify any leaks.

Ed Porter (2:07)

Interesting. Well, that is something I would have got wrong immediately. And then you said there were two things.

Sam Wilson (2:12)

Yeah, I suppose with Cadent, who I obviously work for, and not just Cadent, all the distribution companies, is that people think we sell gas. This is probably a hangover from the good old days for British gas and where they used to do everything, come and fit your fire and sell the gas and all the rest of it. That's now changed and that's divided up. More Cadent are a distribution company. So we own the infrastructure that transports the gas.

We don't sell the gas that's within the pipelines. That's a shipper activity, which is a separate market altogether.

Ed Porter (2:38)

Okay. And a shipper is someone that people would know?

Sam Wilson (2:41)

A shipper is who you pay your bill to.

Ed Porter (2:43)

Okay. So that might be like a British gas.

Sam Wilson (2:46)

Yes, obviously there's loads on the market, but there will be the people that will take the money. Clearly, we contribute to the bill, but it's a fixed number, which is for the maintenance and the transportation. It's not done on how much gas you consume directly. So that's a common misconception, I'd say.

Ed Porter (3:00)

Okay. And sort of taking this one step further, I would like to do that journey from gas molecule to home boiler. So if we start at either, and I'm going to give you two options here, an LNG tanker coming in and sort of providing gas that way, or from one of our gas fields, like where does that molecule go? How does it get to the home?

Sam Wilson (3:23)

It goes on the journey, that's for sure. So it depends on the source clearly, but we have a number of different sources where we get gas from. One is the North Sea, that can be the traditional form, if you like, that's been historic for GB, which has been directly from our fields, or it can be via the Norway and through the pipeline. And you will also get it from LNG in various places, which is diversified more recently due to various economic pressures that are well known. So they will come in, there will be interconnectors or LNG is tanked in, we have a number of places around the country where that can happen.